Post by on Mar 14, 2010 19:25:50 GMT

Much has been made of Pragmatism, so, in the interest of a general understanding of this philosophical movement, I post the following:

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. Pragmatism, in William James' eyes, was that the truth of an idea needed to be tested to prove its validity. Pragmatism began in the late nineteenth century with Charles Sanders Peirce and his pragmatic maxim. Through the early twentieth-century it was developed further in the works of William James, John Dewey and—in a more unorthodox manner—by George Santayana. Other important aspects of pragmatism include anti-Cartesianism, radical empiricism, instrumentalism, anti-realism, verificationism, conceptual relativity, a denial of the fact-value distinction, a high regard for science, and fallibilism.Pragmatism enjoyed renewed attention from the 1960s on when a new analytic school of philosophy (W. V. O. Quine and Wilfrid Sellars) put forth a revised pragmatism criticizing the logical positivism dominant in the United States and Britain since the 1930s. Richard Rorty further developed and widely publicized the concept of naturalized epistemology; his later work grew closer to continental philosophy and is considered relativistic by its critics.Contemporary pragmatism is divided into a strict analytic tradition, a more relativistic strand (in the wake of Rorty), and "neo-classical" pragmatism (such as Susan Haack) that adheres to the work of Peirce, James, and Dewey.

Post by on Mar 14, 2010 20:03:53 GMT

Here is a criticism from an Objectivist viewpoint:

[The Pragmatists] declared that philosophy must be practical and that practicality consists of dispensing with all absolute principles and standards—that there is no such thing as objective reality or permanent truth—that truth is that which works, and its validity can be judged only by its consequences—that no facts can be known with certainty in advance, and anything may be tried by rule-of-thumb—that reality is not firm, but fluid and “indeterminate,” that there is no such thing as a distinction between an external world and a consciousness (between the perceived and the perceiver), there is only an undifferentiated package-deal labeled “experience,” and whatever one wishes to be true, is true, whatever one wishes to exist, does exist, provided it works or makes one feel better.

A later school of more Kantian Pragmatists amended this philosophy as follows. If there is no such thing as an objective reality, men’s metaphysical choice is whether the selfish, dictatorial whims of an individual or the democratic whims of a collective are to shape that plastic goo which the ignorant call “reality,” therefore this school decided that objectivity consists of collective subjectivism—that knowledge is to be gained by means of public polls among special elites of “competent investigators” who can “predict and control” reality—that whatever people wish to be true, is true, whatever people wish to exist, does exist, and anyone who holds any firm convictions of his own is an arbitrary, mystic dogmatist, since reality is indeterminate and people determine its actual nature.

“For the New Intellectual,” For the New Intellectual, 34.

And a further criticism from Lenord Piekoff:

By itself, as a distinctive theory, the pragmatist ethics is contentless. It urges men to pursue “practicality,” but refrains from specifying any “rigid” set of values that could serve to define the concept. As a result, pragmatists—despite their repudiation of all systems of morality—are compelled, if they are to implement their ethical approach at all, to rely on value codes formulated by other, non-pragmatist moralists. As a rule the pragmatist appropriates these codes without acknowledging them; he accepts them by a process of osmosis, eclectically absorbing the cultural deposits left by the moral theories of his predecessors—and protesting all the while the futility of these theories.

The dominant, virtually the only, moral code advocated by modern intellectuals in Europe and in America is some variant of altruism. This, accordingly, is what most American pragmatists routinely preach . . .

In politics, also, pragmatism presents itself as opposed to “rigidity,” to “dogma,” to “extremes” of any kind (whether capitalist or socialist); it avows that it is relativist, “moderate,” “experimental.” As in ethics, however, so here: the pragmatist is compelled to employ some kind of standard to evaluate the results of his social experiments, a standard which, given his own self-imposed default, he necessarily absorbs from other, non-pragmatist trend-setters . . . When Dewey wrote, the political principle imported from Germany and proliferating in all directions, was collectivism.

Post by KNOs1s on Mar 21, 2010 14:22:05 GMT

Thanks for posting this Brother. In many ways, it is clear that Pragmaticism cannot avoid a type of dogmaticism. In some cases, individuals become rigid and extremist in their Pragmaticism.

I am minded of some interesting experiments in attempting to walk between socialism and capitalism. Bellamites seem to have thought in this direction without success. I am surprised that its relative, Utilitarianism, is not mentioned in these quotes. I quite appreciate John Stuart Mill's approach.

"We should be as skeptical as possible before accepting any theory."STAPLEDON

"The writer has his own very strong and definite persuasions, and the reader must bear that in mind." WELLS

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